


Cost of Freedom

by mirror_cannibal



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Agony, Character Death, Crying, Death, Grief/Mourning, No Plot/Plotless, One Shot, Pointless, Sad, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:50:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8172134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirror_cannibal/pseuds/mirror_cannibal
Summary: Just a short one-shot; Eren, Mikasa, and Armin have achieved victory against all odds. For the first time in a long time, humanity has freedom once again. But what was the cost? How many lives has the Survey Corps lost? Is humanity really better off now, after their "victory"?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Seven hundred and twenty-nine words of complete and utter sadness. Because I'm a depressing and horrible person who enjoys torturing myself and others with these agonizing feelings, if only to prove to myself I can feel at all.

"You meant so much to me," Eren whispered, kneeling at the side of the body. It was covered in a sheet, the blood still seeping through the cloth. "All that time…you spent with me. It meant so much."

Armin stood next to him, a hand on his shoulder. Tears glistened on the blond's cheeks, but his breathing was steady and his body was still. "You didn't deserve a death like this," Eren sobbed. "You should have kept going. It should have been me."

On the boy's other side stood Mikasa. She kneeled down beside him and put her arm around his waist comfortingly, her gaze downcast and her black hair casting a shadow over her tear-stained eyes. "You were meant to lead us to victory," Eren continued, tears streaming from his eyes, but his voice never faltered. "You sacrificed yourself to protect me. I can never repay you now."

Beyond the body they kneeled at were more, covered in bloody sheets. Row after row of lost lives, stretched across the field, the blood glistening on the grass and soaking into the dirt. "We succeeded," Eren went on, "You never saw the victory, but we succeeded. It was all thanks to you."

There were few survivors, and they were all injured and emotionally traumatized. Some crouched at the feet of certain bodies, praying. Some lay on the ground, holding wounded limbs and crying. Some stared off into the distance with blank faces, unresponsive to the few others that moved around in an attempt to snap everyone out of it and get them moving.

"It's ok," Mikasa said quietly, her voice soft and comforting. "He's in a better place now. He will no longer know the death and suffering of this world."

Eren sank his fingernails into the ground, gritting his teeth. "It should have been me! Why did he have to—" he broke down into sobs, Mikasa gripping him tighter and Armin crying silently beside them. They had seen so much death already.

At least now it was all over. But at a terrible cost.

Eren took a few deep breaths, then looked back at the body. "My…my report, sir." Mikasa turned her face away from the body, pressing her forehead against Eren's shoulder as more tears escaped her eyes. "We've lost…a lot. Among the soldiers who fell bravely in the line of duty…" Armin's knees buckled and he sank to the ground, putting his head in his hands as the Eren went on.

"Jean Kirstein…Connie Springer…Krista Lenz and Sasha…" Somebody screamed in the distance as a needle cut through their skin, sewing gashes closed. "Even Hannes and Hange…Mike…and…Erwin."

A young girl in the Survey Corps uniform was staggering through the rows of bodies, crying, "Where is he? Where's my brother?" Her voice broke and shattered, shattered into the too-heavy air, impaling everyone's hearts with jagged edges.

Eren stopped his report. "But many were saved. The civilians…there are few casualties among them."

There was a scream behind the three. Eren kept his dull eyes on the body before him, but the other two turned to see…

"He's killed himself," Mikasa whispered, her voice barely audible, staring at the blade impaled in the soldier's stomach by his own hand. The grooves in the blade served as funnels, the blood streaming out of him and onto the ground where the dirt hungrily sucked it up.

"I'm so sorry," Eren kept talking to the body. "If it weren't for me, you'd still be alive. If it weren't for me…"

Soldiers rushed behind them, yelling and crying at the thought of mourning yet another death, even after the victory. But was it really such a victory after they had lost so many? Who were the real winners?

Suddenly Eren stood up. His two friends stood with him, standing always by his side. He opened his hand, staring down at the torn piece of cloth he had been clutching. _Wings of Freedom…huh. What a strange thought. And yet I spent most of my life thinking it._ He looked around the field, where bodies upon bodies lay in stillness. _But what of the cost of freedom?_

_Did that thought ever cross my mind?_

Eren held the Wings of Freedom to his heart, saluting to the body before him. "Until we see each other again…Captain Levi."


End file.
